


how do you kill an android?

by alekszova



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26274598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: Connor is missing. Somewhere in the wooded area by the river, where the snow falls heavily and covers tracks left behind, where the scent of the water tries it's hardest to cover up the metallic scent of blood.convin september challenge#3 - my heart is cold
Relationships: Connor/Gavin Reed
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61





	how do you kill an android?

— _six months ago_

“Hi.”

“Hello?”

Gavin smiles. Stupid and awkward like he has for the last two years. Trying to break the ice and always failing. Connor doesn’t help him. He shouldn’t have to. He’s not the one that started the fight in the Archive room and he’s not the one that ended up pulling the trigger. So he refuses to help Gavin break the ice after everything happened, even if he doesn’t hold as much of a grudge anymore.

Connor wasn’t perfect either.

But that’s hardly the point.

There’s a fine line between manipulating protocols that CyberLife installed with him to be annoying and killing someone because of an outright hatred of their kind.

Though he has to give Gavin credit—

He’s trying. He’s moved away from the cold-shoulder in the months after the revolution to offering Connor the only bit of kindness he displays in the station at all. It’s amusing. Seeing Gavin act like a high schooler even though he’s nearly forty.

“I was wondering if you wanted to hang out tonight?”

“How so?”

“There’s a cafe that opened up a few blocks away. They sell Thirium stuff. You could get a drink. On me, you know. I’ll buy.”

“How generous.”

“I’m trying,” Gavin says quietly. And Connor knows he is.

He is trying.

He’s trying his hardest.

But he’s never actually said the words, has he?

_I’m sorry._

No.

He’s never said those words at all.

“Okay,” Connor says. “Just this once.”

  
  


— _now_

Gavin was in his room when he got the text. He thought it was going to be Connor messaging him something sweet and stupid like he has every night when they walked away from each other. He thought it was going to be Connor asking him if he misses him yet, and Gavin would reply _yes of course_ because the second they part Gavin thinks about the lightness in his chest and his head and how things finally seem to be improving.

But instead what he got was:

_Help me_

_At the river_

_Please_

  
  


_— six months ago_

“So…” Gavin says, trailing off. “What does Thirium taste like?”

“According to humans? Windex.”

“But to you?”

“Oh, nothing at all,” Connor says quietly, pushing the mug away. “Some androids have sensors, taste buds basically, but I don’t.”

“No?”

“I’m a prototype. They didn’t exactly splurge on unnecessary details.”

“What about now?” Gavin asks. “You’ve been a deviant for two years. You could get upgrades.”

“It’s unnecessary.”

“Yeah but—”

“Gavin,” Connor says. “Why am I here?”

Gavin reaches for a napkin, unfolding it and folding it again. Smaller and smaller. Something to do with his hands so he has an excuse to not look him in the eye.

“I just wanted to talk.”

“In a crowded place?” Connor asks. “Are you afraid I’m going to kill you?”

“No,” he says, then smirks. “Maybe.”

“I wouldn’t kill you. I know how much that hurts.”

“Connor—” he says before he cuts himself off. He sighs, sitting back. “I just don’t want the two of us to hate each other.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“I think you do.”

“Then give me a reason not to.”

  
  


— _now_

He is ice cold. Frozen from the inside out. No part of him contains any whir of machinery, no warmth of gears churning together. His once perfectly regulated temperature has died out now, his body left out in the cold for too long. The snow has created a dusty layer over the surface of his body. The water soaking his clothes turning to ice. He is frozen and he is dying, fading out further and further.

And yet his eyes remain open, staring up at the night sky above him. Watching the wind as it carries away some of the snow in a gentle breeze. Bright moonlight bathes the area around him like a spotlight, like an SOS, a call for help—

_I’M HERE!_

_PLEASE!_

_I’M HERE._

But there is nobody left to hear it.

No one at all.

And when his vision starts to go dark, it isn’t because his eyes are slipping closed, but because his systems are shutting off. Leaving him with one last look at that icy sky above him as the coldness in his chest takes over completely.

  
  


— _five months ago_

They’re sitting by the river, tossing stones into the water. Connor’s always sink to the bottom, but Gavin’s skip across the surface, ripples echoing out across the surface of the water. He tells Connor his brother taught him. They used to run away into the woods when they were kids. Pretended to be wolves or bears. Climbing trees and getting sap stuck in their hair.

“My brother’s friend was over at the time. I thought he was so cute and it was so fucking embarrassing, you know? Climbing up there trying to hide from Eli and coming down with hair all stuck together. He felt so bad about it because it was his idea. He tried to help me get it out. I remember sitting in a chair in the bathroom leaned back and trying not to look at him, just looking at the ceiling and pretending that I wasn’t enjoying the situation.”

“Was he your first crush?”

“Yeah. Probably,” Gavin laughs “I made a deal with Eli when we were kids, though. We wouldn’t date each other’s friends. We’ve always held up our bargains.”

“How sweet. You were a nice kid. What happened to you?”

Gavin looks over to him, his smile faltering a little bit as he picks up another stone, tossing it out across the water. “I don’t know. My dad got really sick. My mom ran away. My dog died. Then I lost all my friends and my brother went off to college and I was just… alone. Sometimes people like being alone and that’s true, you know. I do like being alone sometimes. But I just think that I’m so… fucking scared of dying alone.”

“Is that why you wanted to be friends with me? So you’d have an android that would never die on you?”

“No, I…” he trails off. “I wanted to make it up to you.”

“For killing me?”

Gavin shrugs. “It’s not like that, Con. I never wanted… I never wanted to be friends with you because I thought it would change anything. I fucked up. I’m sorry.”

“And what took you so long?”

“What?”

“You killed me almost three years ago. You’re apologizing now? Why?”

“I don’t… it’s hard. I wasn’t… I didn’t think apologizing would actually change anything. You still died. I still killed you. Saying sorry isn’t going to take that back.”

“But I’m here. I wanted an apology. I wanted you to feel—” he pauses.

He wanted Gavin to feel as badly for what happened as he did. He wanted his pain shared in some way. It is such a selfish thing, but he didn’t want to be the one hurt in the situation.

“I’m sorry,” Gavin repeats. “Really. I am. I should’ve said it sooner.”

“You’re right. You should’ve. It really hurt,” he says. He sits up, looking out across the water again. “Thank you for apologizing, but if it’s alright with you, I’d rather not talk about this. I don’t like to think about it.”

“Does being around me make you think about it?”

Connor sighs, looking back to Gavin, looking at the rock outstretched between them. An offering for Connor to try once again to skip the rock across the water. He takes it gently, even as he answers with a quiet whisper of a _“Yes.”_

  
  


— _now_

He isn’t fast enough. He’s too old for this. Running through the woods. Even with every bit of adrenaline in his body propelling him further, he isn’t fast enough.

He’s never been fast enough.

He stumbles to a stop by the edge of the water, his hands cupped over his mouth as he screams.

_“Connor!”_

_Please._

  
  


_— four months ago_

Connor comes with him once a week to the cafe. They sit across from each other. Gavin gets hot chocolate, too late for caffeine. Connor orders Thirium, always so hot that steam rises off the mug for the majority of their conversation before he even touches it. He barely makes eye contact with Gavin at all. Both of them seem to have their gaze glued to the rise of the steam as it wisps away into nothingness. And when they’re done with their awkward small talk about work and childhood memories, they walk back to the station side by side in silence.

Tonight they stop between two roads. Cars whipping down the street at top speed, never giving them a chance to cross. Connor is watching the cars, moving slowly to stand a few feet away, towards the edge of the building. Safe from the road.

And he isn’t really sure why he does it. Why he steps in front of him like a shield. Why he reaches out and takes Connor’s hand and squeezes it once. _It’s okay._

He’s scared of things, too. Thunderstorms and spiders and earthquakes. He’s scared of buildings collapsing and elevators crushing him in two.

“Don’t look at them,” Gavin says, his voice quiet and muffled by the cars beside him. “Look at me if you want.”

Connor squeezes his hand back. A quiet agreement passed between them.

  
  


— _now_

The twigs break underneath his feet as he heads back through the forest, moving through the trees. Slower this time, so the beating of his heart and the heavy heaving of his lungs don’t take over his need to listen for Connor to respond to him. He needs a response. It’s snowing too heavily out here. He can’t see anybody’s footsteps at all.

And what if Connor can’t yell?

What if he’s dead? What if someone has him, choking the life out of him? What then?

He tries not to think about it. He tries not to think that he was once in that same position, too.

He tries not to think that Connor is a deviant now, and whatever pain from this situation will be a hundred times worse than whatever he felt when Gavin killed him.

And it’ll be all his fault, too.

  
  


— _four months ago_

Gavin is funny when he isn’t being cruel. When he’s just making cheesy jokes that seem like they’ve been plucked out of a joke book for thirteen year olds. Connor hasn’t smiled or laughed this much in a while. Hank’s recovery has taken him away to a rehab facility again. He’s all alone once more, and while he’s grateful for Hank getting help, the loneliness has started to kill him.

So he’s agreed, more and more willingly every week, to hang out with Gavin. Out in the park for a showing of an old black and white movie. Walking home after work and stopping by cafes and diners to stretch out the time a little bit longer. They wander inside of convenience stores, finding cheap plastic toys that Gavin seems to always buy, only to place on a shelf in his house. A collection of necessities, he says. He doesn’t elaborate on it, and Connor doesn’t ask him to.

But he likes Gavin’s place. It’s comforting in ways that his own isn’t. And he likes sitting on Gavin’s couch, petting the cat that curls up close on his lap, watching Gavin play a game and telling him what to do and where to go just to annoy him. Or watching a scary movie and the two of them screaming at the same jump scares together, laughing seconds later about the fact that they were scared by something so stupid.

He likes when Gavin comes over, too. Sitting outside in the backyard with Sumo, laying on the blanket, looking at the stars. He likes when Gavin tells him things that feel top secret, that he maybe shouldn’t be allowed to know at all. He likes that Gavin trusts him.

He likes that he trusts Gavin in return. Just a little bit. Enough to confide in him about the loneliness of this house. How he feels like Cole’s ghost is haunting each and every corner in some small way, whether good or bad, he doesn’t know. But it’s there. Telling Connor not to settle in too comfortably.

“I found a box of his toys in the garage when I was cleaning it out a few weeks ago. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I put it back. And I know how old Cole was when he died, but sometimes… finding his things… how small the clothes are… Just hits me. I didn’t even know him.”

But it feels like he is grieving for him. Some lost boy. A child who’s life never should’ve been taken away.

“You’re allowed to be sad about it, Connor. Plenty of people are sad for stranger’s deaths. And Hank’s your friend. You feel sympathetic. Or empathetic. I never learned the difference.”

“Thanks, Gavin,” Connor says, with a small laugh that isn’t quite real and isn’t quite false. Somewhere lying in the spectrum of not knowing whether or not jokes are allowed to be told in such close proximity to confessions like these, but it’s all Gavin ever has.

Deflecting with humor. Lightening the mood.

He isn’t quite sure if he appreciates it. It’s hard to tell when all looking at Gavin does now is make him feel a little bit calmer and a little bit safer from the ghosts in his head.

  
  


— _now_

It was a stupid mistake, thinking he was safe. He hasn’t been safe for years now. Protests and hate crimes didn’t really get to him and they were decreasing in numbers, but it didn’t mean he was safe. And even if anti-android protesters and hate crimes were being treated seriously, it was stupid of Connor for thinking that was the only reason someone could hate him. For being an android. For being crafted from plastic and metal. He was stupid for assuming he was safe. He isn’t. He’s not. He never will be.

Connor would laugh, if the function was still in operation.

He has never heard words said with so much anger and venom about something so perfect and wonderful to him. He has never thought of holding Gavin’s hand as a dangerous thing. He has never considered a quick kiss against Gavin’s cheek as a sign that he was lesser-than. He never thought that the smiles and the hugs goodnight and the promise to see each other tomorrow were perverted, disgusting little things to say.

But then they look at him for less than a second and Connor can see it on their faces—

Wouldn’t an android, especially _this_ android, look a little bit better in pieces? Dumped in the river? Sent floating away somewhere else entirely? Far, far away from this city that wants to put itself back together again?

  
  


— _two months ago_

“Con? Can I ask you something?”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“What the question is.”

“Oh,” Gavin laughs. “Okay. I… Can I just ask it? And you can decide whether or not you want to answer?”

“Okay.”

“Do you… still look at me and think of that night?”

Connor is quiet.

For far too long.

Gavin is standing here, holding onto his phone, turning it over in his hands, waiting for an answer that he’s terrified of getting but needs to know. He hasn’t spent these last few months being friends with Connor to get his forgiveness. He likes his company, and other than Tina, Connor is the first person he’s told about things in his past. But he has to know.

He can’t keep living every day worried something will finally snap.

“I still think about it,” Connor says. “I have nightmares, yes. I look at you sometimes when we’re on a particularly hard case and you look… so angry and so… You look like you did that night. And I don’t blame you. After the first second I think about it, I realize that’s not you. Or it is but… but it’s different. Valid, this time, I guess.”

“You’re confusing me.”

“I’m confusing myself,” Connor says with a small smile. “But no. To answer your question, it’s not like it was before. I used to loathe the idea of being around you, even with other people. Now I…”

“What? You love being around me?”

“Wouldn’t quite say that,” Connor says, but something in his town makes Gavin think he’s lying. “I just prefer to be alone with you.”

“Alone?”

He nods. “Wouldn’t mind being alone with you tonight, too.”

“I—” Gavin smiles, can’t stop himself from it. “I don’t… get what you’re saying.”

“Because you’re stupid.”

“Hey!” Gavin says, flicking a paper clip at him. “I am not.”

“You are.”

He is.

Very stupid.

  
  


— _now_

“Connor?” he yells again, his voice breaking this time, the twentieth or the fiftieth or the hundredth time he’s yelled Connor’s name. Snapping half like one of the branches under his feet. Tears edging into his vision again. “Connor, where are you?”

  
  


— _two months ago_

He didn’t mean for this to happen.

Having sex with Gavin.

It was supposed to just be a kiss. It was supposed to be cheesy and sincere and nothing else. It was supposed to be quick and sweet and promise for them to maybe have more.

But then Gavin kissed him back and he didn’t break it off like he was planning on. And then Gavin’s hands were on the hem of his shirt, tugging it upwards, asking Connor if it was okay.

And of course it was okay. Of course Connor wanted it. He had been thinking about it for a while, never knowing how or when to act on these things. And it didn’t matter. The sun came up the next day, he had texts and missed calls on his phone from Hank asking where he was. He had Gavin’s arm around his waist, he had butterflies in his non-existent stomach.

And he was happy and content, though a little regretful.

Regretful not for Gavin, but for the lack of warning to Hank.

But still—

Happy.

  
  


— _now_

It happened so quickly.

He said goodbye to Gavin for the night. Promised to see him in the morning. One quick kiss that lasted a lot longer than a quick kiss should, but their quick kisses always did. They said goodbye. Connor walked away, feeling empty and more than a little lonely without Gavin at his side, holding his hand, leaning against his shoulder, burrowing his face against his neck when they waited for the lights to change. Because Connor is always warm, and Gavin is always cold, and the winter air is such a good excuse for them to display their affection a little more boldly than they usually do.

He supposes it’s also a good excuse to hide crowbars up sleeves of big jackets. For scarves to be pulled from necks and wrapped around his face, cutting back against his throat and making him gag on the cloth. For fear and pain and old memories to surface as tears in his eyes and fists thrown weakly, for knees to be hit hard with metal.

He fell to the ground where they pulled him near the river. Kept kicking him each time he tried to get up, but if he lingered on the ground, they’d yell at him to stop being _such a fucking pussy._

So he tried.

He did what they wanted because not doing anything meant getting hurt, but doing something, of trying to follow their rules, meant it too.

So what was he meant to do?

To lie there and take it?

_No._

  
  


— _one month ago_

“What are you doing?” Connor asks quietly.

“I’m memorizing your face.”

“You’re staring at me.”

“No,” Gavin whispers, tracing the shape of his nose. “I’m memorizing your face. I don’t want to forget you.”

  
  


— _now_

The smell of blood hits him first. Not Thirium.

Blood.

Gavin steps out onto the shore of the beach, the flashlight on his phone picking up from the snowy ground before him to the stretch of rocks and dirt coated in blood. Bodies laying by the water. One face-down in the river, the others—

He looks away from them. They aren’t Connor. He knows that. Connor was wearing a big blue puffer coat. Gavin thought it was hideous. Connor loved it. Made him feel safe and soft, and it was big enough that once he zipped up Gavin in it with him, pressed close and squashed and he could barely breathe.

He finds Connor a few yards away, laying beside the water, eyes to the sky, lips parted. No rise and fall of his chest that Gavin questioned a hundred times over the purpose of, but now that he sees Connor as still as an android should be, he gets it. He gets why he needs it. The reassurance that the thing beside him is alive.

The noise that comes out of him is a broken scream. An animalistic thing that makes him stumble forward, falling into the snow and the blood and the Thirium as he grasps Connor’s body, pulling him forward, tugging him close. He finds the knife wound on his stomach, the dents in his body. Blood spilling at him at such a fast rate he doesn’t know what to do. There is the sound of an ambulance in the distance. Fire trucks and police cars. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He just knew Connor was in trouble.

He was faster than them in finding Connor but he was still too late.

Connor is still dead.

Eyes open.

Looking to the sky.

  
  


— _one week ago_

“So, how _do_ you kill an android?” Gavin asks. “Don’t you have like… memory cards?”

“Sort of. But there’s a lot of information that makes up an android.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“Can’t you just… reboot and be fine? Recover the files?”

“It’s not that easy, Gavin,” he says quietly. “When an android is damaged, sometimes the damage is so extensive it’s easier to start from scratch. That’s how repairs worked before.”

“But now that androids are considered… alive? Shouldn’t they be more careful?”

“It doesn’t mean they are,” Connor replies. “Doesn’t mean that protocols have changed.”

“Markus should have this as part of his campaign.”

“He does. Android memory rights. He wants to pass a law ensuring androids data banks are protected.”

“So if you die…” Gavin whispers. “You’d come back, right? You wouldn’t leave me alone?”


End file.
